Summary

The RSS position on pre-release access to official statistics remains that we prefer to see no pre-release. Failing that, we wish to see a substantially shorter pre-release period than the current UK/England practice of 24 hours (2-3 hours at most).

We believe the Welsh practice of 5 days for non-market sensitive statistics, to be totally unacceptable for the reasons set out in the earlier correspondence. The arguments against pre-release access are exactly the same in Wales as in the rest of the UK. At the very least we would want the Welsh Government to reduce the access period to 24 hours for all official statistics (not just market sensitive statistics) and thus come in line with the UK Government and Northern Ireland.

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